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In the last issue I told you about
Kibly,
the new vendor I am using to build feedback and increase product reviews.

As I said then, the early results were excellent. Well,
Kibly
is still doing well. I am getting more product reviews than I used to and
my feedback grows every day.

If you follow my newsletter, then you know I have been with Vendio for
years. Well I looked around and think its time for a change. I just signed up with
InkFrog.

They are less expensive and more up to date than Vendio, and have really
good support. Plus, they can also do what JoeLister does and that will save
me quite a bit of money.
InkFrog
not only allows you to create eBay listings, they also have an automatic
fulfillment program whereby you can fulfill your eBay sales from your
Amazon FBA inventory. If you are currently with another service, talk to
them and they can import your listings.

Are you selling Made in USA products? I have been researching the
keyword Made in USA. My research shows that it works best in the
following categories:

Toys

Home & Kitchen

Pet Supplies

Clothing

Grocery & gourmet food

It also works somewhat in other categories, but these tested the best.

eBay Sellers - Did you know that eBay is now posting your phone numbers to
buyers? A lot of sellers don't mind, but others consider it an invasion of
privacy. I don't remember eBay asking me about this -do you?

If you sell on Etsy, they have just announced a fee increase. Starting July
16, Etsy's transaction fee will rise from 3.5% to 5%. They also announced a
5% charge on the shipping cost. The 20¢ per item listing fee will
remain unchanged. As part of the deal Etsy's CEO Josh Silverman said they
will invest more heavily in marketing to attract more buyers and will add
several new seller tools.

When eBay first started, it was an individual seller-to-buyer auction.
However, over the past 20 years, eBay has become a professional
business-to-consumer marketplace. Although it still has millions of items
for sale from individuals, by far, most of eBay's business now comes from
large professional sellers.

Consequently, 90% of the items sold on eBay are now at a fixed price,
similar to Amazon. By the end of 2016, over 80% of all products sold on
eBay were brand new merchandise, with used, handmade and vintage goods now
making up less than 20% of all sales. (Note some overseas sites like the UK
still do better with used, vintage and handmade items).

So, is it time to give up on eBay? That depends. First of all, I should add
that several of the emails I received were from folks who said they were
doing very well on eBay and had no plans to move. So, perhaps I am just
frustrated with eBay's constant changes, policies and poor management.
Although my personal eBay sales are quite poor -there are plenty of sellers
still doing well despite the policy changes, continual system glitches and
search engine issues.

My basic philosophy is that eBay is still the best place to be if you sell
anything used, handmade or vintage. Etsy has been giving eBay more
competition, but is still small in market reach compared to eBay.

However, when it comes to new merchandise, Amazon is by far King of the
Hill. I used to sell 80% of my goods on eBay and only 20% on Amazon. Today,
that is flipped on its head. My total merchandise sales are now 85% Amazon
and only 15% eBay (I sell almost all new merchandise and very few used
items).

eBay has not only seen Amazon's rise to the number one eCommerce seller in
the world (A position eBay used to own), but it has spent the last 15 years
trying to copy them --but alas, without success.

The problem has been, and still is, poor management. eBay has never had a
visionary leader. The previous CEO, John Donahoe, was in my opinion, one of
the worst CEOs of any company I have ever followed. The current CEO, Devin
Wenig is slightly better -but not much. One of Donohoe's biggest mistakes
was getting rid of the eBay community. He set out to kill it and he did!
eBay has never been the same.

The top traits of a successful CEO are many, but certainly include:

Vision, and the ability to communicate it

Building relationships with all members of the corporate community(stakeholders)

Strong listening and communication skills

Understanding and listening to their customers

Neither John Donohoe or Devin Wenig were very strong in any of these. The
current CEO Devin Wenig has slightly better communication skills than John
Donohoe, but he doesn't use them very effectively.

One trait that the CEO and top executives at eBay share is they do not
understand who their customers are. Remember, eBay itself does not sell
anything. Every single product sold on eBay is sold by an independent
seller. It's you and me, the independent sellers who are eBay's true
customers. Every single dollar of eBay's income, except for advertising
(where they earn money competing with us), comes from fees paid by sellers.
In return for those fees, eBay is supposed to attract buyers and provide a
reliable, attractive and safe platform to conduct eCommerce. This is where
eBay fails.

eBay has always thought of the end buyer as their customer - not us sellers,
the folks who actually pay their bills. If they ever did consider us sellers
as customers, their attitude would be: The customer is always wrong.

Another problem is technology - eBay just isn't very good at it. The eBay
platform probably has more system glitches than any other major eCommerce
site. In fact, just last week, buyers were running into circles, spinning
beach balls and dead pages when looking for products. That went on for over
two days. It seems like every time eBay introduces a system or platform
change, they roll it out with glitches galore.

As for vision - I follow eBay more closely than anyone I know -and if
asked, I could not tell you what eBay's vision is and what their plans for
the future are. I suspect that inside eBay; the most common statement is
"Let's be more like Amazon." Unfortunately, that is a desire --not a
vision.

When it comes to listening, and building relationships, this has never been
a priority for eBay. Even before the last two CEOs, eBay rarely sought
counsel from, or listened to, sellers (their actual customers). I have been
to dozens of eBay events, and although they almost always include a short
Q&A session - mostly they consist of eBay speaking and presenting to
sellers. The time they spend seeking opinions from, and listening to
sellers is minimal.

At every eBay event I have attended, the eBay executives are surrounded by
bodyguards and handlers whose job it is to keep you away. Compare this to
Amazon. I have only been to a few Amazon events, but in every case, the
Amazon execs were not only approachable, they usually sat down and had
lunch with us.

If you follow this newsletter, you know I have written about best keyword
practices several times. Well forget all that. What amazon is telling you
about their keyword indexing has changed again.

Before I get started, let me review some basics. A keyword is a
word or term a potential buyer types into the Amazon
search bar when looking for a product. One of the products I sell is a set
of collapsible silicon measuring cups and spoons. (see photo below)

A keyword would be something like cup, but that is way to broad. A
term (or phrase) would be something such as measuring cup set. A
customer would be far more likely to search for the term
measuring cup set than the word cup.

Frankly, this product has not been doing well. Despite advertising and
frequent rewriting, I was still barely in the top 50% of the Kitchen &
dining category. But I recently changed how I used my keywords and saw
immediate improvement.

Amazon's last announcement stressed using relevant words in the title and
backend keyword fields. However, I have been testing that, and it's not
working well. Here is what is working today:

Your keyword (or phrase) must be relevant to the product

The title is still the most import field for keywords

Forget the backend keyword field. My testing showed it did not produce good results.

Despite what Amazon says, they are still indexing keywords in the
bullets (product features). They only index a few of the bullets,
but get as many important keywords or terms in there as you can
(within reason)

The other place their new search algorithm looks is the Subject Matter Field.
You get up to 5 lines with 50 characters per line. OK to put
keywords in there. The set of silicon measuring cups and spoons was
selling one per week. I put these words below in the subject matter
field, and sales jumped to 1 per day within just 4 days.

collapsible measuring cups

Baking measuring cups

measure cup spoon set

You can enter things such as Made in USA or stocking stuffer (if appropriate to your product) in the Subject
Matter field, as those are searched terms.

Amazon still looks for keywords in the product description, but the
weight is minor. It can't hurt to use some keywords in the product
description, but the bullets, title and subject matter fields will yield
better performance.

Notice the column that says Available. It shows you the number available,
the storage type (standard or oversize) and the cubic feet it takes up in
storage. Next is the age in days: 0-90, 91-180, 271-365 and over 365 (1
year). As you can see, of my first three items, I have one that is over 365
days. (Yes, I did a removal order on that). The first item is quite
profitable, so I lowered the price. Since this screenshot was taken, I have
sold another four units.

When you spot an item with low conversion, the page gives you several
choices. You can lower your price, create a removal order or advertise the
listing. When an item goes over 90-days, the first thing I do is lower my
price. If that doesn't work, I will usually just do a removal order, as I
have found that advertising slow moving items is mostly a waste of money.

This is valuable information for two reasons; It will help lower your
storage costs and removing the items will improve your Inventory Management
score.

SKUs to restock today
- This is nothing more than a low inventory report. I find this helpful
because it alerts me to restock sellable items before I run out. Just click
on the link and it will show low and out-of-stock
inventory.

If you see an item on the list that you no longer plan to stock, just check
the box next to it and select Hide Recommendation from the drop
down menu.

Excess Units
- This is a very useful report because it identifies slow moving products
and their storage cost. The page gives you several options. You can create
a removal order, match the lowest price, or advertise the listing (Sorry I
can't show those fields here due to room, but you will see them when you
visit the page).

Notice that one of the items is the Silicon measure cup and spoon set. I am
not removing those because they started selling better since this
screenshot was taken.

SKUs with Stranded Inventory
- This page shows you any listings whereby your inventory is stranded (i.e.
un-sellable). This is almost always caused by a listing that is missing or
incomplete. You can usually solve the problem by creating a new listing.
When I try to do this I have run into problems reusing the same SKU and
have had to ask support for help, but they always seem to fix the problem
for me.

Once again, if you sell products using FBA, it is a good idea to use this
tool. Doing so has several benefits: It will help you reduce storage costs,
turn your inventory over faster and keep you in good graces with Amazon so
your inventory levels are not restricted.

This is a very interesting niche because it works on both eBay and Amazon
and with new or used items.

Tiki mugs are ceramic drinking cups in the shape of a Tiki god. You find
them most often at Tiki bars and restaurants. Most places allow you to take
them with you as a souvenir. (They can do that because the drinks sold in
them are usually vastly overpriced). This is why many of them eventually
show up at thrift shops.

Before we get too deep into this, let's take a look at some recent listings
on eBay and Amazon:

When I searched the term tiki mug on Amazon there were over 200
pages of results, and on eBay I found over 1000 separate listings. Best of
all, on Amazon many of the Tiki mugs listed had a sales rank in the top 10%
of the Kitchenware category, and on eBay, the sell through rate was over
25% which is excellent.

As you might expect many of the Tiki mugs sold on Amazon are new, whereas
the bulk of the mugs sold on eBay are used. You might think it is hard to
find wholesale suppliers of Tiki Mugs, but it's not. Here are a few
suppliers you can try:

That last one, Tiki Farm has been making Tiki mugs for over 12 years. They
are always coming out with new mugs and discontinuing older one which makes
them highly collectible. (Note: All of their mugs say Tiki Farm on
the bottom, along with the year they came out. The older the mug the more
collectible it is, unless it was one produced in very high quantities).

As for used mugs, the easiest place to find them are thrift shops (Look
everywhere -not just in the drink ware section. I have valuable mugs mixed
in with vases and other pottery).

I have also bought box lots at small country auctions, and I once found a
large box at a flea market (about 15 mugs for just $20).

There are four main components that factor into the price:

Condition - never-never-never buy a mug that is chipped, cracked or
discolored. It will never sell if you disclose the flaws, and if
you don't you don't, look for a negative feedback.

Rarity - I don't have the room here to go into what makes a mug rare -but
if you look at sold listings on eBay, and sort by highest price first,
those at the top will usually be the rarer mugs.

Design - Look for traditional designs (think Easter Island) as those tend
to command higher prices even if they are newer

Material - Never buy plastic mugs, they are worthless. There are some glass
mugs that are OK, but in general the ceramic and stoneware mugs sell the best.

This is an interesting niche that can be highly profitable. I have often
found mugs at thrift shops selling for 50¢ that will bring over $25 on
eBay.

On Amazon, the best way to sell is to put together sets of 4 or 6 identical
mugs, or create a bundle of 4 to 6 different mugs.

Remember many of these websites do not show wholesale pricing because they
don't want the general public to see them. When you run into that, just use
the Contact Us form to request wholesale information.

Hashtag Decor
works with artists and photographers to portray their original designs as
multi-dimensional and 3-D framed images.

JuJu Gear
sells upcycled clothing all made in the USA (Montana). All the material
used in their clothing is recycled from donated and/or remnant clothing.

SeeUBaby Store
makes and sells a backseat baby car mirror and car organizer set. They also
carry other car accessories for anyone who travels with a baby in the car.

Animal Stuff Inc.
sells pet steps, including some environmentally friendly stairs. In
addition, they offer a line of cat furniture. They will drop ship several
of their products. Most of their products are made in USA.

Streetwise Security Products
is a large manufacturer & wholesaler of stun guns, pepper spray, alarms
and spy cameras. They will ship direct or dropship.

Please Note:
Some of the products and
services mentioned in this website, in articles, banner ads and
newsletters and blog posts are for products and services for which I
earn a referral fee or commission. We always evaluate anything we
recommend very carefully and each year we turn down literally dozens
of opportunities to recommend products or services where we can earn
a commission. Even though we earn a fee on some of our
recommendations, we only recommend products and services that we
feel will deliver good value and with rare exceptions, they all come
with a money back guarantee.